MVSU basketball player was reportedly warned about his expired immigration status years before ICE detained him

Years before immigration officers arrested a Mississippi Valley State University basketball player last week, the school he previously played for said it warned him to correct his immigration status — contradicting his attorney’s earlier claim that the student athlete didn’t know his visa had expired.

But Qingfang Pang, the 6-foot-9-inch player born in China, received warnings as early as two years ago — when his previous college, Monroe University in New York, advised him to restore his status after learning it had lapsed in September 2024, spokesperson Jacqueline Ruegger told Mississippi Today.

His attorney, former professional basketball player Marcus Session, said Friday the information was news to him. 

“It doesn’t seem like they’re forthcoming with the right information because they continue to allow a student who’s on an expired visa to attend for two years after they supposedly warned him,” Session told Mississippi Today. “This doesn’t make sense.”

Pang previously met with another attorney at Monroe’s recommendation to discuss his expired status, Ruegger said. But Session said Pang told him that he didn’t know his visa had expired until MVSU recently alerted him of the issue.

In the years since Monroe reportedly warned Pang to correct his immigration status, he continued to play basketball for the Monroe University Mustangs, before joining the Delta Devils this academic year.  Under federal immigration law, if Pang were on the main international F-1 student visa, his records should have listed that he had officially transferred to MVSU before classes started.

Although MVSU’s semester kicked off in August, Ruegger and Session said the university didn’t contact Monroe for Pang’s international-student records until this week — after immigration authorities had already arrested him. MVSU did not communicate a reason for the potential delay in its request, according to Ruegger. Mississippi Valley did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Before Mississippi Today learned of the potential delay, MVSU spokesperson Donnell Maxie said the school’s international student office “wouldn’t delay” on paperwork.

“We’re not going to play with that,” Maxie said. “I mean, we’re not a big university with a lot of resources, so we’re just getting by as it is.”

Ruegger said Monroe had been waiting to transfer Pang’s international-student records ever since the basketball player graduated with his associate’s in sports management in the spring, when he informed the school that he planned to continue his studies elsewhere. But for months, she said, Monroe never received word that he had enrolled at another university.

After MVSU requested his records this week, Monroe transferred them, according to Ruegger.

“The responsibility for being in status rests 100% with the international student, not with the institution,” she said. “We were ready to transfer the record, as soon as we were informed that it had some place to go.”

Pang is now in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Richwood Correctional Center in Louisiana, according to the agency’s website. The Department of Homeland Security confirmed that ICE arrested Pang on Sept. 29.

The student athlete was detained when he tried to fly to New York to meet with his sponsor, a family friend, to correct his status, Session previously told WJTV. DHS wrote in an email Friday that Pang’s immigration status expired two years before, in September 2024 — a day after he started his first year playing basketball at Monroe.

“He legally entered the U.S. on November 17, 2023 on a temporary basis not to exceed September 5, 2024, but illegally overstayed,” DHS wrote. “This administration will not ignore the rule of law.”

Courtesy of Mississippi Today